Kenyan Governors pile pressure on bid to borrow funds

Council of Governors chairman Peter Munya speaking to journalists.

NAIROBI: Governors want a number of key functions performed by the central government handed over to the counties in the New Year.

Council of Governors (CoG) chairman Peter Munya said duties still under the national government but which fall under counties should be transferred before March 2016.

Speaking while welcoming 2016 early Friday, Mr Munya noted duplication of duties by the county and national governments.

He said: “We expect that institutions still performing county functions should hand them over this year. Duplicating of duties has made county governments expensive and made Kenyans feel that the government is blotted.”

The CoG chairman said provision of water is a county function yet it was still being performed at the national level.

He added that all Health, Agriculture and Provincial Administration functions should be devolved. Munya said all roads in class D and below should be handed over to the county governments.

“We expect that all roads in class D and below will be handed over to the counties. We believe this government is law-abiding and therefore, will respect the decision of the courts to hand over roads supposed to be maintained by counties and hand over resources meant to maintain those roads,” he said.

Financial pressure

He said governors would co-operate but within the framework of the law. “We are not going to co-operate by bending the Constitution. We will co-operate within the framework of the law as established by Kenyans,” he said. On financial pressure experienced by the country, he said: “We don’t think it is devolved governments that are making the government expensive. It is the failure by the national government to downsize itself and restructure itself to accommodate the devolved system of government.”

He said lack of funds was a huge challenge to the counties.

He said: “It is upon the national government and Parliament to do everything within their powers to make sure the borrowing framework is replaced so that counties can access funding for infrastructural and long term development.”

Munya added: “At the beginning, we had said we required time to settle down because counties were new. The decision was that three years will be required for counties to settle down to understand what they are supposed to do then after three years, they would be allowed to access borrowing. Already, three years are over and therefore we do not want any excuse to deny counties the ability to borrow to fund their programmes, when the national government is borrowing left, right and centre and crowding the space that is required for counties to access borrowing.”

Terming 2016 as a year full of political activities, he expressed optimism that politics of the day will not crowd crucial issues that need to be addressed at the national level. Nonetheless, he said all institutions given the mandate to manage elections should involve the people so that there is confidence by everybody in them.

“We expect adequate preparations will be done to prepare the country for 2017 polls,” he added.